This Transtube Rage 158 came for check-up. Owner felt the
tone wasn’t the same after he had it repaired by a tech. Now to begin with, 'Feeling'
does not always mean factual. I tested it and hear buzzes coming from either
the loudspeaker basket or something else. It couldn't be the cabinet itself as
it feels tight.

Open it up to clean the board and saw a jumper-ed on the
fuse. I see, it must have blown the fuse at some point and that was the solution?
The stock fuse is 3A, putting a (or several strand of) wire would increase the
rate to 13A or more. The previous tech thinks he's smart, by saving a few cent for an actual
fuse so both party part ways happy. Unknown to the customer, he just made a
time bomb of his customers amp. The amp may lay next to a bed, near a pillow. Now
this is the kind of fucking retard tech wannabe who's the kind that would get the rest of us in
deep shit. I wouldn't be surprise if he jumper-ed all the fuses in his shop, cars, house
etc.

On the positive side the idiot could have the ability to mend back or jumper-ed light bulbs and dead tubes. I just hope he had not jumper-ed the fuses of his neighbours' house
too, but who knows. I'm guessing he's been doing it since the 80's. He must
have picked up this bad DIY habit after watching The ‘A’ Team, Macgyver and The
Simpson? My dear fellow readers, good thing there's a way to identify these Jumpers. The signs or the symptoms if or when you meet these little IED
planters are, they don't speak much, but if they do, it's mostly all unrelated
electronic made up rubbish jargon. Wait a minute, that sure sounds like me. Well,
forget that and anyway,

Let's get to know a FUSE and its functions. The
number one purpose of it, be it big or small is to die or ceased or disconnect a
current path. It does not matter how it dies whether it's ruptured, blown to
pieces or snapped filament. Die means literally die. A fuse also acts as a
current limiter. A firm one at that. A veto from it mean your gear will not
turn ON. No one has ever been able to tell us a fuse gender. I'm puzzled by
this myself.

In this Peavey Transtube Rage 158, the fuse it between the power
transformer and the Fuulll Bridge Rectifier diodes. Now the fuse is rated at
3A meaning that's the maximum current it will allows through. My theory
is at some point in this amp's life someone crank the volume for quite a long
duration. Because of that there's a rise of current demand from power amp
section. The power amp section kept
complaining not enough juice, the caps says it can't keep up, meanwhile the
power transformer is shouting what's the hold-up down there? This went on for perhaps few
hours, days, weeks before the fuse sang "I can't fight feeling any longer,
and yet I’m still afraid to let it flow” Pop! No sound.

But I know now why the other tech jumper-ed the fuse.
Just look at the type of fuse Peavey puts in this amp. It's the bloody soldered
to the board type. You imagine the hassle this would be, even for an engineer or
doctor to replace it. I've checked online and the price was ridiculous. If I
were to buy it, I'll end up keeping 19 pieces of it as collector’s item. Collector’s
item my bottom. Who else uses this type of fuse today? I do not know any other but Peavey.
Maybe the International Space Station are using it too? Well good luck to you
when you blew an amp up there.

I happen to have a set of through hole fuse socket. I
put that in with a new 3A fuse. I soldered every suspicious dry looking pads.
Serviced the front panel input/output TRS, pots and switch. I scrap of the old
heat compound paste and replace the filter caps, just for good measures. There's
still buzz from the loudspeaker. Indeed it’s affected by what happened. I don't
see any 8 inch Blue Marvel for sale in Full Compass web. Good news then?

I end this entry with some advice to the jumper tech (Yes,
I know who you are now). Imagine one day your car/bike/house/shop caught fire.
The post investigation would show a short circuit caused by you. You won't receive
a cent from the insurance company (if you did bought any). Don't discount the possible
loss of human life (if they were any). All because of wanting to save few
ringgit or to earn 50 ringgit service?